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This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving is more than a celebration of friends and family. It's an opportunity to welcome in both our neighbors and passing strangers to share food, stories and recipes.

The first Thanksgiving in the Plymouth Bay colony wasn't families in their individual cabins.. It was a feast of 53 Englishmen and around 90 Wampanoags dining together as a community.

Growing up, my father was on the coaching staff of two Major League Baseball teams. In part, that meant every Thanksgiving our table was surrounded not only by my parents, grandparents and siblings, but also "stragglers," as my mother called them – those who couldn't make it home or had no where to go. Often we'd have more than one. Our typical dinner would an infielder from San Francisco a third-base coach from Denver a pitcher from Cuba.

My personal favorite was the four players from the Dominican Republic who mistakenly thought our pet parakeets and cockatiel might be after-dinner delicacies.

Six years ago, I celebrated my first Thanksgiving in the Verde Valley. Rather than go back to my mother's home to Chandler, I stayed in Sedona and celebrated with my new group of 20-something friends, most of whom lacked the time or funds or both to make it home. While a first for me, that hodge-podge potluck Thanksgiving was part of long tradition among my circle of friends and one we're planning on celebrating again Thursday, Nov. 26.

However, I'll see the holiday through fresh eyes this year. My girlfriend – a Canadian – will celebrate her first Thanksgiving in the United States. While Canadians celebrate a Thanksgiving holiday, our American flavor is new to her. In looking through our newspapers, she was surprised at all the local churches, businesses, food banks, nonprofits and clubs offering free turkeys, full dinners or financial assistance to individuals and families in need.

This Thanksgiving, rather than just your extended family and friends, invite your neighbors to join.

Attend or volunteer at one of the Thanksgiving banquets the Verde Valley offers.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

People having fun. This is what summer and being human are all about. I want to take part really bad. Columbus, Ohio lets get it on. I have the perfect helmet to make for it.

Via Wikipedia:

The CTFL was started by Robert Easley in Seattle, Washington. Robert had childhood memories of hitting friends and family with cardboard tubes in mock sword fights. He came up with the idea of starting regular tournaments around the act of cardboard tube fighting. This idea comes from three core beliefs:

People need more ways to play and take themselves less seriously.

Events can be fun without alcohol.

Cardboard sword fighting is fun.

The CTFL hosts tournaments and battles where cardboard tube fighters go head-to-head in an attempt to break their opponents tube without breaking their own. The events also focus on cardboard costumes and theatrics. These events are often held at public parks throughout the summer, are open to everyone ages 5 and up, and emphasize fun over competition. Cardboard tubes are provided and all events are free for participants.

Via the San Francisco chapter:

“The CTFL was created out of a desperate need to better train and arm citizens with cardboard tubes. While many speculate that our fore fathers, when drafting the constitution, originally intended the fourth amendment to refer to fire arms, there is now a small group of non-academics who believe that they were more likely referring to elite militias of card board tube wielding ninjas. While this training often takes place during childhood, it is discarded by adults who remain uneducated about the importance of such practices. The goal of the CTFL is to provide organized cardboard tube based events that help spread cardboard awareness.”

Cardboard Tube Fighting League in Philadelphia – Battle Royal!

There are rules:

1) Don’t break your tube. In a duel, the last person with an unbroken tube is the winner. In the event that both participants break their tubes at the same time, both duelists are considered losers. A tube is considered broken when it is held horizontal and the tip drops to an angle greater than 45 degrees or it is completely detached from the rest of the tube.

2) No swinging arms. No body slamming.

3) No stabbing. Lunges involving tubes are not allowed under any circumstances. Participants who exhibit this behavior will be ejected from the event.

4) Do not attack the opponent’s face. Hitting the face is heavily frowned upon and can force ejection from the event.

5) Once a tube is broken, fighting must cease.

6) Only official CTFL tubes are allowed. These tubes are provided at the events.

7) No blocking of opponent’s tube other than with your own tube.

8 ) Tubes must always be held near the end. Participants may switch ends as they see fit. Holding tubes in the middle is illegal.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

While I'm surfing Facebook tagging artists at GumptionFest IV and drunk friends from Halloween, my girlfriend is lying on my bed, practicing her Mandarin Chinese with an audio book she picked up from the Sedona Public Library.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Halloween dancers, led by Martha Edwards, dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" on Saturday, Oct. 31, during the Uptown Sedona Trick-or-Treating event.We're a silly city and seeing our residents do things this make me feel warm inside.Azami and I caught this, then headed north to Flagstaff to see Sedona's party rock band Yin Yang & Zen Some play at the Orpheum.

CFG the slam poet

Fox the Poet

Christopher Fox Grahamis a Montana-born boy raised in Arizona to be a poet, artist, and singer with unending wanderlust. He's fascinated with art and other shiny things, a good story will keep him captivated and silent as he soaks you in.

In truth, he is good at only three things: using language, kissing, and driving.

He has performed for MTV and on The Travel Channel's "Your Travel Guide" episode of Sedona. Aside from winning more than 100 poetry slams, he's published four books of poetry, most recently The Opposite of Camouflage, and won the 2012 Dylan Thomas Award for Excellence in the Written and Spoken Word.

A slam poet since 2001, he currently hosts the bimonthly Sedona Poetry Slam in West Sedona.

For nearly four years, he was the senior Copy Editor of the Sedona Red Rock News, and an arts reporter and a columnist. He wrote a weekly column "Sedona Underground," about the city's art scene. After leaving in May 2008, he was asked to return as Assistant Managing Editor in October 2009. He was promoted to News Editor in April 2012 and in August 2012 was promoted to Managing Editor, overseeing the Sedona Red Rock News,The Camp Verde Journal, Cottonwood Journal Extra, The Scene and The Village View.

He has won numerous personal and editorial newsroom awards from the Arizona Newspapers Association, including three awards for Best Headline.

He was the managing editor of Kudos, a weekly arts and entertainment publication of the Verde Independent. He was also managing editor of The Villager, a weekly news publication in the Village of Oak Creek.

He is one the six coordinators of GumptionFest a kickass, annual, one-day grassroots arts festival held in Sedona, this year in September. More than 100 artists and bands exhibit their work for free to more than 1,200 people.

In 2005, he founded the Sedona Poetry Open Mic, which he hosted biweekly at Java Love Cafe on second and fourth Tuesdays until 2012. A former venue included Random Acts of Coffee, in Sedona, which closed in June 2005. The venue named a drink after him which one can order an various coffeehouses in Sedona. The "Topher": A large soy chai with two (or three) shots of espresso. Serve iced or hot. He was member of the city of Sedona Child and Youth Commission for two years and chairman for another two years before the commission was dissolved in 2008.

He has been unofficially named "The Voice of the Underground," in Sedona for his column "Sedona Underground" that appeared every Friday in The Scene. for more than three years, featuring more than 150 artists.

He won the 2004 NORAZ Poets Grand Slam, the 2005 Arizona All-Star Poetry Slam, and was a member of the 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2013 Flagstaff National Poetry Slam Teams. He was also a National Poetry Slam bout manager in 2003, venue manager in 2011, and Sedona Slammaster in 2012, 2013 and 2014, sponsoring the city's first three Sedona National Poetry Slam Teams.

He believes that all slam poets are Jedis.

He has been thrown out of six movie theaters, 18 bars, a Las Vegas nightclub with his girlfriend, a public pool, two malls, four golf courses, one bowling alley, five dorms, one airport, one pet store, a now-defunct nonprofit poetry organization ... and Canada. Seriously.